Kim’s Future Reconstruction & Recovery Fund

Hi there! Incase you do not know me, I am Kim. It’s taken me a while to get comfortable with starting a fundraiser because I am stubborn on this front. I can do it, and do it myself. HA! Sometimes life says NOPE!! Keep reading for the WHY I am asking for help.

In April of 2023, I awoke in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in my left breast aka Ethel. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and she ordered a 3D Mammogram. I schedule for May 2023. (I will leave out parts that were the hassle.)

She gets it back and ordered a biopsy. While waiting for results I just know in my gut that it’s going to come back for Breast Cancer. Yup, it does. DCIS, the earliest detection, small and very treatable. Cool. Well, not cool, but ya know. I have already been through hell and I know the way out.

June 2023 is the MRI and I start to feel the same excruciating pain in my right breast, aka Gertrude. The Girls are not happy and neither am I. Not how I wanted to spend my 50th birthday summer !

July, I meet with the doctor to plan treatment. She for sure recommends a mastectomy on the left but wants to check out the suspicious area in my right breast. Biopsy number two comes back as pre cancerous. My thoughts were already if “I’m loosing Ethel, I will sacrifice Gertrude as well.” I know the pain my mother went through with the loss of just one breast and the hairdresser / artist in me likes symmetry and balance. I am sure you know where this is going… End of August 2023, I had a bilateral mastectomy. The pathology came back on the left side and what had started as a small tender area and mass had grown to 6 1/2” and on the right side was the beginnings of DCIS. Good news is all margins were clear and I did not require any further treatment except Tamoxifen for the next 5 years. What the hard part for me is the reconstruction.

End of April 2024, I began the reconstruction part of my cancer journey (there has to be a better phrase) and had expanders placed to stretch the skin. In December 2024, I will undergo DEIP Flap reconstruction. The down time is 6-8 weeks. Judging from the expander placement surgery, the recovery time was 2-4 weeks. I guessed on the shorter side of 2 weeks and it took the long side of 4 weeks. The surgery in December will be about 8 weeks. This is why I’m asking for help. I don’t want to get under water with monthly bills and rent.

As a self employed, independent woman, if I’m not working, I don’t make income. I am planning ahead and starting to raise funds to help me cover bills and items that will need purchased such as an electric recliner and specific clothing items for December 2024 through February 2025.

I am positive that you know at least one person in your sphere of friends, family and co-workers that has been touched in by cancer in some way. I can name ten people right off the top of my head. Would you consider helping (and sharing) me keep on top of bills so that the weight of not working will make it easier to recover and get back to life when the time rolls around?

Many, many thanks in advance from the bottoms of my feet, my heart, to the top of my head and mostly from Ethel & Gertrude V2, my new Foobs, debuting 2025!